Zoe drifted down to the blue effervescent planet, the surface bubbling and popping, the heat radiating from it intense even from several feet away and with so little air to transmit heat through. From far away it looked like a massive chunk of ice drifting through space, but from up close it seemed to be more of a gas giant than a solid planet. Bubbling blue and purple gasses mixed together to form a beautiful mixture of colours. Pops of gas erupted from the planet, spurting colourful particles into the air that drifted back down to mix into the swirling mass of wonder.
A few fist sized balls appeared next to Zoe, each one a different element that she had control over. One by one, she drifted them down into the gas, pressing as far in as she could to try and find some solid ground or at least see if the gas would be safe to touch.
Almost every element Zoe pressed into the gas exploded in colour as it touched the gas. Frost shattered, water burst into steam. Wood erupted into flames and the earth melted, dripping down into the gas. The only elements she could keep sustained in the gas were ones the didn’t mind the heat, or elements that didn’t interact with it at all. A temporal anomaly that pushed through the gas or a sliver of space ripping through it. Cinders was the safest option for experimenting, glowing bright as it touched the gas but allowing Zoe to keep control of it.
The glowing ball of ash and flame dipped into the gas and Zoe pushed it as far as she could control, looking for something solid. She shoved it around within the pool of gas, hoping to hit a rock or at least a creature, anything that would be solid. But there was nothing, just superheated gas as far as she could tell.
Zoe looked at her resistances, heat was almost up to two hundred already. She pursed her lips and peeled away a bit of the earth covering her foot as she drifted down closer to the gaseous planet. The temperature shot up as she descended the final few feet towards the sea of gas, burning into her toe even before she dipped it into the gas.
She took a deep breath and plunged her toe into the pool of gas, grimacing as she felt it burn into her flesh. Zoe Cosmic Leaped back out into space and covered her foot back up as Restoration rushed through her to repair her scorched toe. She looked down at the planet and chuckled. Not every planet would be a success, she supposed. Maybe the gas would have some interesting use, some purpose if she could harvest it. But that wasn’t what she was out here in space for right now.
Zoe turned her attention back out to space, looking through the darkness for anything that could catch her attention. Even further was another distant planet, little more than a speck floating among the endless darkness and swarm of brilliant stars. She looked back towards Abyllan and felt her connection to Joe through her Spacial Weave. As far away as she was already, Abyllan was barely visible in the distance — the moon with her bustling dungeon wasn’t visible at all. If she didn’t know where to look, Zoe doubted she’d ever find her way back to it.
By the time she made it to the next planet, Zoe doubted she’d be able to see Abyllan at all, even with the help of her Spacial Weave. And that excited her, she found. She was truly exploring new grounds, places people back home wouldn’t even be aware of. Planets even the most passionate about space might not have even seen in their life. Planets that even those who could explore space might never have found.
She cackled in unburdened joy as she Cosmic Leaped through space towards the next planet. It had already been about a day according to her quite accurate internal clock, which meant she had about two or three days to explore if she were going in a straight line from Abyllan. If she kept a very large orbit and maintained a comfortable distance, maybe four days at most.
Zoe hurtled through space towards the next planet, speeding up with each teleport as she pushed herself forward with her Earth skill. Though she wondered how much that was affecting her speed now anyway. When she was only able to teleport a few kilometers at a time, the extra speed from just moving faster would add up. But now she was teleporting almost a thousand kilometers at a time — maybe a little more than a thousand. How long would it take before she actually reached a speed that mattered on that scale?
In another day and a half, Zoe found herself approaching the next planet. It reminded her of home. Her original home, the blue planet she lived on before she was thrust onto Abyllan. Covered in water with specks of green breaking up the gradients of blue. Though, the specks of green were far smaller than she remembered and much more broken up, with the deep blue gradients seeming to inspire even more fear than the oceans back home ever did. And it was massive, comparable even to the size of Abyllan. Maybe larger.
She drifted down to the surface of the planet, maintaining a barrier of air around her as she did. The last thing she wanted was to trust another planet to have breathable air only for it to be filled with some poisonous gas that would knock her out and kill her.
The green patches weren’t grass, or even trees. Or any kind of plant life that Zoe had expected to see. Up close, they were almost like a fabric, a wool covering that drifted in the slight and constant breeze that blew across the planet’s surface. Zoe summoned a sharp wedge of frost and pressed it into the cloth like material, splitting it apart with no resistance. Around a foot beneath the surface of the material was solid dirt, with thousands of tiny bugs skittering away as Zoe uncovered their home.
Zoe grinned at the sight. Bugs were gross, but they were life! This planet had life, it had real actual living creatures on it. These ones might not be intelligent creatures, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be intelligent creatures somewhere else on the planet.
She scooped up some of the green material with a large wedge made from frost and stored it away in her Storage skill. It could be interesting to try and research, and Eliza would kill her if she didn’t bring back some kind of souvenir to play with anyway.
Zoe drifted across the planets surface, looking for anything that stood out to her but even after a day of Cosmic Leaping around, nothing did. There were vibrant ecosystems all around — bugs that skittered about below the green substance. Crustaceans and fish that lived in the shallows around the plentiful island. But on the surface, there was nothing else. There were no buildings, no footprints. No signs of intelligent life.
She looked to the deep oceans, the bottoms of which far beyond her vision and shuddered. Space was one thing, but an ocean? Zoe took a deep breath and pushed mana into her Water skill, shoving apart a narrow column for her to fill with air and descend into.
Traversing through the ocean was even more complicated than travelling through space, Zoe found. And the deeper she went, the more difficult it was to hold back to immense weight of water pressing down on her magic. But bit by bit, inch by inch, she crept further down into the oceans.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
And it was beautiful. Vibrant forests grew from the ground several kilometers below the surface, with thousands of fish darting from hide to hide. Tunnels and caves peppered the ground, with incredible creatures swarming within them. Octopus with dozens of tentacles too many, whales covered in far too many eyes and massive clams with powerful claws grasping at anything that passed them. Everything looked so different, so unfamiliar and strange.
Zoe drifted through the ocean for several hours, watching all of the creatures live their lives. Some of them came up to her and showed some interest, but none seemed to be intelligent. None responded to her gestures or magic, just showing a passing interest in something new that was moving.
Until she caught something out of the corner of her eye on the ocean floor, darting behind a purple bush. Something familiar — if her memory served her right, the same kind of creature Greg had met back in her dungeon. A moment later she grimaced as she felt something ramming its way into her mind.
Identify yourself
Zoe shook her head in surprise. “What?" She shouted out to the ocean. Another moment later she gripped the side of her head as the same feeling returned.
Identify yourself
“Can you hear me?” Zoe asked. “I’m Zoe.”
Identify yourself
Zoe cringed, struggling to maintain her hold on the many skills she used in tandem to keep herself alive so deep underwater. She pushed even more mana into another skill — Frost, to form her name in large letters that she floated above her head. Seconds passed before another surge of pain wracked through her mind.
Name your purpose
“Shit,” Zoe grumbled to herself. How could she explain her purpose to somebody who couldn’t even hear what she was saying? Mana rushed through her skill, shifting the letters that floated above her to form the word ‘explore’ instead, followed by ‘peace’ several seconds later when no response came.
Minutes passed in excruciating silence before something drifted out from behind the trees. A strange looking creatures with four legs, two arms and a long neck swam out. Long strips of what looked like kelp covered its body and drifted through the water behind it as it swam towards Zoe.
To Zoe’s Identify, it was a dark red level forty eight Warrior. Was it a species difference to get its fourth class at such a low level or was it just lucky? Zoe looked around the forest for any other movement, looking for the creature that was communicating with her but saw nothing. Was this creature the one who was almost incapacitating her with its mental magic? Was that just because she was weak to mental magic, or was it because its species was disproportionately strong for its level compared to Zoe?
The creature swam up to Zoe and stopped just in front of her, towering over her even as its feet dangled several feet below hers. One of its arms reached into the mass of kelp fur that hung from its body and pulled out a purple stone that it held out to Zoe. Its hand, if it could be called that, looked much more like a shovel or perhaps a flipper than an actual hand.
“For me?” Zoe asked.
The creature shook its hand, pushing the stone closer to Zoe.
A jolt of power raced through Zoe as she reached out and touched it. The creature cackled as she did, its head bending upwards as it let out a guttural roar. Dozens more roars echoed from the ocean around her as more of the creatures swam out from behind trees and bushes on the ocean floor towards her.
Zoe felt her heart racing, every bone in her body telling her to run back to Abyllan and never step foot in space again. She drifted away from the roaring creature, leaving the stone in its hand as she felt the impact of dozens of creatures trying to speak into her mind at the same time. Friend, they said. Peace, they assured her.
But Zoe’s mind crumbled under the pressure, her magic released and her body was thrown aside by the immense weight of the water crashing down on her. She tried to hold onto consciousness, to fight back against the water and the pain wracking through her mind, but it was too much, too quick. Zoe felt the panic racing through the creatures surrounding her as they sent message after message to her, asking to help, asking if she was okay. Their concern in any other time would have felt gleeful, but in the moment as she felt herself losing consciousness thanks to the barrage of mental images, it felt like little more than a painful irony.
Some time later, Zoe shot up, gasping for air as she awoke on a small patch of land. The green material covered her arms and legs as it ebbed and flowed across her body. She winced as she felt her mind cracking under a familiar pressure.
Peace
Zoe looked around and saw several of the strange creatures swimming in the water around the tiny island she rested on. She laid her head back down as she took a deep breath. She was alive. She laughed at the stupidity of it all. Stranded on some far away planet only to almost drown to death.
Her eyes shot open as she wondered how long she was unconscious. She felt for her Spacial Weave connecting her to Joe and felt a slight tug pulling her back towards Abyllan. It was still there, for now. She looked to the corner of her vision at her vitals. Full health, full mana. Stamina about half full. She was safe, stable.
Friend?
Zoe cringed as another message hammered into her mind. Frost appeared above her writing out ‘friend’ and ‘quiet’ as she looked through her stat sheet to distract her from the fear and pain she felt. Several of her resistances had levelled, Cold and Mental the main ones but Sound and even Bone had shot up a few since last she checked. She even got another level, bringing her up to three hundred fifty seven. She split the points between Intelligence and Wisdom bringing them up to just over six thousand Intelligence and just over seven thousand Wisdom.
She chuckled to herself as she urged the system to show her all the options she had for her seventh class. A familiar empty feeling she’d grown used to after decades of trying to optimize her classes.
*Ding* The following classes are available;
Zoe’s jaw dropped as she stared at the swarm of messages covering her vision.
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